Measure attacks corporate campaign funds

Published 4:50 pm, Sunday, September 23, 2012

It seems just about every San Francisco ballot features one of them: an advisory measure telling the federal government just what our famously liberal city thinks it's done wrong.

Recent years have featured separate measures calling for the end of the war in Iraq, the end the funding of the war in Iraq, and the impeachment of then-President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney over, in part, the war in Iraq.

This time around, local scrutiny is on campaign finance and specifically the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2010 that permitted unlimited spending on political campaigns by corporations on the basis that corporations have free speech rights like people do.

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On the Nov. 6 ballot, San Franciscans will weigh in on Proposition G, which instructs Congress to pass a constitutional amendment reversing the Citizens United decision and ending "artificial corporate rights."

Olague said it's important for San Franciscans to occasionally have a say in matters beyond their city borders - and outlandish corporate spending to buy politicians is just such an issue.

"We pass a lot of resolutions at the board, but sometimes people like to weigh in on them, make a statement," she said.

The policy declaration may seem like one of those only-in-San Francisco measures; who can forget the ballot measure that tried to name the city's sewage treatment plant after Bush? But it is actually part of a concerted national effort to overturn Citizens United.

Common Cause, a nonprofit that promotes good government, has started a project called Amend2012.org that intends to amend the Constitution to overturn the Supreme Court's ruling. That is a nearly insurmountable challenge, considering a constitutional amendment requires support from two-thirds of the Senate and House of Representatives and ratification from three-fourths of the states.

According to its website, Amend2012.org plans to start smaller and, "in the great tradition of American rabble rousing," get as many cities and states as possible to pass ballot measures called voter instructions that call for the overturning of Citizens United. The city of Richmond has a similar measure on its November ballot. A handful of states, including California, have passed similar resolutions.

But not everybody is convinced there's really any point to the project.

Supervisor Sean Elsbernd said he voted to place Prop. G on the ballot only because he believed progressives wanted to use it as a wedge issue to drive voter turnout in other key races.

"Because it means absolutely nothing, I figured don't give them a wedge issue," said Elsbernd, a moderate. "Vote for it to get on the ballot and move on to far more important things."

Elsbernd added, sarcastically, that Justices Antonin Scalia and John Roberts "are probably losing sleep over this and are waiting with bated breath to see what San Franciscans have to say. Then, they'll change their vote."